Snooping TV.

Just been listening to a radio piece about those Samsung smart TVs the CIA etc have apparently hacked so they can listen to what's going on in the room. So wondered if any of the computer savvy types could explain a few things I've observed with my voice activated Samsung TV.

1) If it is in standby, it no longer appears on my LAN. 2) I'm not aware of a method of bringing it out of standby over the internet. (it can be set to look for software updates etc overnight, though) 3) The LED on the front of the set changes colour between standby and on. Think most would notice if it was on when meant to be off. 4) Can the really very cheap microphone fitted to such things differentiate between the speech or music etc from the TV's own speakers just a few inches from it and pick up intelligible speech from the other side of the room?

Perhaps spies always have their TV switched on with the sound turned down. Despite things like bugs having been around for many a year. Obviously, their spy degree didn't include having a radio etc on loud when discussing something naughty.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)
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Neither does the windows PC here but it'll wake up when sent a Wake On Lan "magic packet".

WOL is tricky across the internet but it is possible, getting past firewalls and NAT is the biggest problem. Not sure what you can do via uPnP that is designed to blow holes in firewalls. Anything here with the uPnP feature gets it disabled.

Probably under software control. The TV piece a day or so ago had a TV running an "app" that appeared to do voice to text.

That's more of problem.

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

If the TV can be voice controlled, it must be able to separate speech in the room from stuff coming out of the TV itself, right?

Reply to
Adam Funk

I believe the way it was done was to fake standby by altering the LEDs to show standby even if the device is on the network, so no WOL needed. Of course, you'd see it on the lan.

Reply to
Chris Bartram

Yes - think I saw that. Wouldn't a spy be suspicious if their TV suddenly turned on and appeared to be running some sort of prog they didn't expect?

I'd guess they have some magic software that enhances speech. Same as the one they use to read a distant numberplate from a grotty VHS tape.

Perhaps the BBC could use it on SS GB? ;-)

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

Think there's a difference from recognising a clear command to understanding all speech.

Although I've never actually tried the voice activated side.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

So first, you'd need to download and install special software to the TV to get the LEDs to show what you want?

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

If the TV has been hacked to do spying it doesn't need to do any of the standard ways of WOL, etc. It may just sit there pretending to be off while recording what's said and sending it later.

The CIA/hacker decide what it does not the manufacturer and they can do more or less what they like to hide its working.

If they have hacked the TV they may well have hacked the router too. It could spoof another MAC address while spying so it wouldn't appear in the routers tables as the TV but say, for example, the smart stat.

Even if you write your own code there are ways to put code into the system without you knowing unless you code in hex. There was a demonstration of how to get a C compiler to put code into programs without the user knowing a few years ago.

Reply to
dennis

What makes you think they have grotty mics? I would think they have an array of mics so that they can detect sounds better and they would also be able to subtract the signal from the speakers relatively easily.

Reply to
dennis

Aren't we expecting a new Wikileak anyday soon with the code of how it was done?

Nick

Reply to
Nick Odell

The TV downloads updates regularly. You'd just have to fool it into loading some hacked update instead of the genuine thing. That could be done by poisening your DNS entries or intercepting the update traffic. With good security, these things would be difficult (but not impossible). However, such appliances are well known for appalling security. Another way would be to exploit a buffer overrun or similar in some the the media decoding software, and providing a hacked film or whatever that causes execution of embedded code via this mechanism.

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

I believe the exploit required physical access to the TV. So spooks would need to break in to set it up. (Which is nothing untoward. As Peter Wright said in Spycatcher: "we bugged and burgled our way through London").

When my (Android) phone is on charge*, if you say "Google" in a normal voice, the mic manages to pick it up and trigger "OK Google" - gave me a hell of a start when it first did it.

*There's a setting in Google Search for "voice control","OK Google", "On when charging"
Reply to
Jethro_uk

Have you any idea how much decent mics cost?

Yes of course. For a stage performance you merely hide the mics inside the speaker arrays. No need for any on the actual stage. It can all be done with clever software.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

Going to be a pretty major hack, I'd say. Have 'they' really got programmers writing this new software for every single telly on the market?

Odd how long it took them to get into a locked iPhone only a few months ago.

You are assuming it is possible to re-programme the device to do all the things needed to turn it into a covert listening device. Makes you wonder how so many makers can't write software so the device works as intended. ;-)

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

Now put it beside a TV with the sound at normal level, and try telling it to do that from the normal viewing seat.

Voice control isn't that new. Getting it to work in the midst of other chat - especially if that chat drowns you out - would be impressive.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

surprisingly,

yes this is exactly what the techs in the spooks department spend their time doing

it's the easy part

the hard part is, as has been said, getting it onto a remote TV which can be anything from not that difficult to extremely bloody difficult, depending upon what levels of authentication the manufacture of the TV uses for OTA updates.

(I suspect that they aren't going to persuade too many people to stick a dodgy USB stick into their TV, which is how they will test their programs in their lab)

tim

Reply to
tim...

it can't "pretend" to be off the LAN, that fact will be determined by your router, based upon whether it is receiving any packets from it, or not

tim

Reply to
tim...

[Tinfoil hat mode on]

It could be programmed to look invisible when "off".

It could have a WakeOnLAN function, this would of course require your router to also be hacked to enable directed subnet broadcasts, or the TV could quietly poll a CIA server when it's "off" and ask if they'd like it to turn on in snoop mode.

LEDs can lie, e.g. laptop cameras can be enabled without turning on the camera LED, black tape over the lens works.

once the audio arrives to the CIA's server farm they can throw all the audio processing they've got at the muffled audio to clarify your bomb plot.

Reply to
Andy Burns

only by not sending any packets

which would defeat the point if the snooper wanted to actually receive what was being said

tim

Reply to
tim...

No, just the major brands; if they want to spy on you and you happen to have the "wrong" brand of TV they arrange for you to win one in a competition :-)

Reply to
Andy Burns

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